The United Nations yesterday approved a declaration urging governments to ban all forms of human cloning, including the cloning of human embryos for stem cell research.

In a victory for the Bush administration in the US, the 191-nation assembly voted 84 to 34, with 37 abstentions, to endorse the declaration recommended by its legal committee last month.

Britain voted against the declaration, saying it would damage research into stem cell therapies for serious diseases.

Yesterday's vote marks the end of a three-year debate within the UN on how to regulate cloning. Efforts to reach a consensus were thwarted by a US-backed resolution to ban all forms of cloning and one backed by Britain to prohibit reproductive cloning - the creation of cloned human babies - while allowing individual nations to rule on therapeutic cloning, the creation of early-stage embryos for stem cells that could lead to new medical treatments.

The impasse led the UN to propose that countries prohibit all forms of human cloning, including stem cell research into new therapies.

The health secretary, John Reid, said Britain opposed the declaration because it ruled out research into using stem cells to develop therapies for serious and fatal diseases. "This would deny many patients with illnesses like Parkinson's disease, chronic heart disease and juvenile diabetes the potential of effective treatments.

"The UN declaration is non-binding and will make no difference whatsoever to the position of stem cell research in the UK; therapeutic cloning will continue to be allowed."